I have been on a foreign movie kick recently. Specifically foreign horror movies. So much smarter than most american horror movies. I loved Oldboy when I first saw it ages ago. My favorites from the ones I have currently seen: Tale of Two Sisters - This is probably one of the best if not the best horror movie I have ever seen. There are so many twists it requires a couple watch throughs to really enjoy it.Martyrs - This is the most graphic, violent movie I have seen. I actually had to stop in the middle and come back to it cause I felt slightly sick. I am glad I finished it though cause it had one doozy of an ending.

I saw Coud Atlas and I really loved it, despite its many and fatal flaws. A glorious psychedelic whimsical jigsaw kaleidoscope of a film. Will definitely watch it more than once. It was like a humanist spec fic Short Cuts.

@imaginarypeople, Tale of Two Sisters is great, love the use of the set as a sort of character the tone of it changes to match the movie, the plants wither, as a visual aid for the mood it worked great and the director also made A Bittersweet Life which is fantastic and The Good the Bad and the Wierd popcorn action flick shot with a flair not too far from kubrick, the one take one point perspective shot on a train at the beginning is the first of make great pieces of great filmmaking in it.

Martyrs I love, one of two movies( Audition being the other ) that have made me uncomfortable which watching and almost hitting stop, it does what very few horror movies can do and that's make me care about the characters, and that ending is a strong one.

@vandalhandle: Yeah Tale of Two Sisters definitely has alot of symbolism in it. I watched it twice in a row and caught alot of stuff i missed the second time. The Good the Bad and the Weird was an awesome movie as well. Just watched it again not too long ago, the opening scene with the train and the eagle/hawk was shot very well. I have not seen A Bittersweet Life, will have to watch that this weekend.Audition is a movie I keep meaning to see as well. But is it more or less unsettling than Martyrs?Has anyone seen the 2 Three Extremes films I remember there being a couple good stories between the two of them.

I think 'Audition' is less visceral than 'Martyrs'. More of a slow burn, and a bit lower gore factor. But when it pops...dang.

If you can handle more extreme French stuff, you might check out 'Inside'...which is every bit as intense and gory as Martyrs. My wife couldn't handle it, and I was squirming during it. And I don't squirm easily.

If you're looking for more quality Korean crime film, you might check out 'Chaser' and 'Yellow Sea'.

Chaser was really good. I Saw the Devil and The Man From Nowhere are also good Korean crime movies.Theres a Korean movie called Mother that was really good also. It has twists in it similar to Oldboy, and the endings are somewhat similar as well.

Saw Zero Dark Thirty the other night. Still processing it. Couldn't decide if (Apart from the nature of the subject matter) it was triumphalist or not. I think Bigelow kept it just this side, and also showed the ineffectiveness of torture. Whether I would go so far as to call that subverting (Getting people in the cinema for a Yeah Go America!! film, then showing how much they messed up) I'm not sure, but it wasn't as straightforward as an American security service cheerleading film.

It seemed to me, as an outsider, to show how the military-industrial complex focuses on symbols and the whole series of events starting from 9/11 was a comic book narrative where the superhero didn't turn up and the super villian need to be vanquished.

@texture - glad you liked Cloud Atlas, Bram. It's taken a fair beating but I think it'll last as - at worst - a very worthy experiment.

I saw Side Effects the other day and really enjoyed it. Soderbergh back on form and even though he'l never reach the Baudrillardian heights of his early stuff, this was good. My only thought was it could do with shaving 20 minutes...I just wasn't sure where.